• Question: * Star Question * Do you ever find that your experiments go wrong? Asked by SM16, Live Chat

    Asked by on 13 Jun 2020. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Dimitra Angelopoulou

      Dimitra Angelopoulou answered on 13 Jun 2020:

      Yes unfortunately! It is really common in biological sciences and can be extremely frustrating and demoralising. However, it is also a way to develop critical thinking and enhance your ability to troubleshoot. Sometimes failed experiments are more informative that the correct ones and they can lead to further, more interesting experiments!

    • Photo: Martin Lott

      Martin Lott answered on 13 Jun 2020:

      I’m not sure that I fully understand what is meant by ‘go wrong’. Sometimes technology does not work correctly and there is no useful result but other times we could find an unexpected result which has some use even if that use was not originally intended.

      I’ve analysed many samples which claim to be Salmonella only for it to transpire that the person isolating that bacteria in fact isolated something else. Science is very collaborative in nature and unavoidable issues which could have been caused by others can happen.

      I remember a story from another researcher many months ago about ‘Roman Campylobacter’. Researchers excitedly talked about how they had analysed an ancient sample and found traces of Campylobacter. It turned out the machine had been used for Campylobacter samples before the Roman samples were loaded and it hadn’t been cleaned properly….

    • Photo: Azarmidokht Gholamipour-Shirazi

      Azarmidokht Gholamipour-Shirazi answered on 22 Jun 2020:

      I agree with Dimitra and Martin. But it is important to know that each experiment is conducted multiple times to make sure of the results. The raw results are studied and interpreted by many people before being reported or published

    • Photo: Annis Richardson

      Annis Richardson answered on 1 Jul 2020:

      Experiments “fail” all the time- sometimes it is because something is wrong with the set-up, but other times it is because you have found something unexpected 🙂

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